The Wonderful Lives of Godric and Salazar
by The Carnivorous Muffin
Summary: In a fit of desperation in a hypothetical Triwizard Tournament, Lily summons the founders from the dead to prove that setting dragons on students is crossing some sort of line. Side fic of "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" and sequel of sorts to "Default Origins"
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: A note that this is a side fic to "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" and also a sequel of sorts to "Default Origins", so if you're unfamiliar you will be confused. Also this is NOT CANON.**

* * *

November, 1994

* * *

"Dragons?" Lily asked, staring at the small pouch of miniature dragons in front of her with a dawning horror, "We're slaying dragons?"

Fleur Delacour, blonde femme French fatale, whose reflection was enough to send prepubescent boys into seizures of sexual delight, merely gave Lily a rather contemptuous glance as if Lily could have figured out they were fighting dragons if she wasn't such an idiot. Viktor Krum, Bulgarian he-man, had the decency to look more apologetic about it but hadn't said anything either.

Cedric Diggory, at least, looked as if he had just been told he was about to march through the gates of hell. Cedric Diggory, Lily had decided at the beginning of this whole Tri-Wizard mess, was her favorite. Which was actually rather surprising as on the whole she had thought anyone not from Hogwarts would have been her favorite.

It also didn't hurt that Cedric Diggory was delightfully attractive and full of that genuine golden princely charm that Wizard Lenin emulated so well but never quite mastered.

"Alright," Lily said, nodding to herself with a confidence she wasn't sure she deserved, "Dragons… I can do dragons."

Sure, Lily had technically never faced anything larger than a troll in direct combat (and the troll thing had very nearly ended in bloody disaster) but she could handle a dragon. After all it wasn't like she could permanently die or anything…

Except, she thought dimly, Wizard Lenin would kill her if she died in front of a live studio audience period. And he would be watching somewhere from the stands, still somehow irrationally blaming her for her name magically appearing in the goblet when they both knew that Lily would never have entered herself into Mortal Kombat magical preparatory school style.

He would kill her if she died in this.

She glanced at Cedric, whose mouth was still open in horror as he stared at the pouch held in Minister Crouch's hands, which, apparently contained the dragon they would face. As the only properly horrified member of the group she asked him in a voice that was probably not quiet enough, "Did you know about this whole dragon thing? I feel like we weren't told about the dragons."

Cedric, apparently, had no answer for that.

"Miss Potter," Crouch said, looking over at her with those exhausted darting eyes, "Do you mind terribly?"

"Well," Lily said, blinking, and then said, "Actually yes, I do, as someone who was voluntold into these whole battle royale shenanigans, I'm not sure I appreciate being told to slay dragons for the entertainment of the masses."

Minister Crouch started, appalled as he said, "You are not slaying the—"

Lily cut him off, hands gesturing wildly before he could make whatever ridiculous point he felt he needed to make, "I mean, sure, I do hold the Little Hangleton arcade record in Mortal Kombat, or at least I did in 1992, but that doesn't mean I necessarily like these tournaments to the death things. Especially since I already have plenty of honor, glory, and money no offense, Fleur."

"You little pest," Fleur said, her French accent as always, delightfully thick, as she glared across at Lily (the little English upstart who according to Fleur had just had to show the entire school up by placing her name in the goblet of fire.)

Lily was still wishing she'd just dropped out at the end of last year like a sane person. Except Wizard Lenin had thrown a giant hissy fit at the idea of her loitering around and not spying on Dumbledore so here she was.

Spying on Dumbledore by slaying dragons for the entertainment of the likes of Draco Malfoy, because that's what Lily did now.

"Please, Miss Potter, you have made your opinion on your participation in the tournament very clear," Crouch reprimanded, glaring across at her in desperation, as if every word out of Lily's mouth just made his job ten thousand times harder than it already was.

"Now, Miss Delacour, you first."

And so it went, Fleur drawing from the bag a tiny green dragon dancing in her palm, exchanging a rather worried look with her headmistress, Viktor drawing out a Chinese golden and red dragon, Diggory some other drgon looking dragon, and Lily a…

"Hungarian Horntail," Crouch announced for her, Lily thought it looked a bit like a dragon had decided to have a go with a porqupine. The thing was positively covered in spikes, burning in her hand, and looked perfectly inclined to raise her village to the ground and devour her livestock.

"Oh," Lily said as she watched it glare up at her with burning eyes, "It looks lethal."

Glancing down at Cedric's she noted, "Yours looks less lethal."

Cedric didn't seem amused by that comment, if his raised eyebrows were anything to go by. Crouch meanwhile was rambling, something about dragons and golden eggs, and you must get the egg or else bad things will happen and your family will be dishonored forever. Or something, Lily was just looking down at the thing rather consumed by the thought that, if it was as big as she thought it was going to be, then there was a very real chance it would kill her.

At least, if she didn't pull out something truly show stopping.

But if she pulled out something really show stopping, out here with the free press, then Wizard Lenin would kill her. But if she didn't he'd kill her anyway for dying in front of absolutely everyone.

Then she'd have to wipe everyone's memories which, after the whole Wizard Trotsky fiasco, left her with a very uncomfortable feeling and a sour note in her mouth and she wanted to avoid if at all possible in any way shape or form.

Except this had to be something normal, ordinary, people could do without dying as Fleur, Cedric, and Viktor were all participants, albeit three years further along in their education and the best their schools had to offer. Lily glanced at Cedric, opened her mouth to ask what he planned to do about all of this, but then the cannon was fired and he was out to meet his chosen dragon.

And so Lily was left in the tent as the minutes went by and they all went on before her, none saying a word of how they went about it, and Lily thought of what she could and would do. They wanted a show, Lily thought, that was the heart of it.

It wasn't about killing the thing quickly or efficiently or even stealing this egg, it was about the show, about the entertainment. Out there was the pounding heart of the Colosseum and the blood of gladiators stained on the ground for all that the upper echelons of wizarding society were too afraid to admit it.

And Eleanor Lily Potter, Lily thought, was expected to lose this fight.

Outside they chanted for Diggory, Krum, Delacour, but there would be maybe a few odd voices for Potter and far more sporting Malfoy's garish badges of "Potter Stinks" (and really, she hadn't thought he'd have the gall or stupidity for something like that, but she clearly overestimated him.)

"I will bring them a show the likes of which they have never seen before," Lily vowed to herself as Dumbledore's voice came over the intercom, announcing that it was now or never.

With a breath she stood and walked from the tent into the rocky terrain of the arena. There, to her surprise, was Default house in the stands along with Gryffindor chanting her name, "Ellie!" She stopped for a moment, stared up at them in some awe, wonder, and confusion.

"Well," Lily said, an odd, touched smile on her lips, "I'll be damned."

She then looked across to where a golden, glittering, egg rested on the cracked earth.

And there, as she barely ducked in time as a jet of fire roared where her head just was, was the goddamn dragon.

"Shit!" she cursed as she darted away, teleported herself to behind the rocks and (for the moment), out of the dragon's line of sight.

That was large, and hot, and she could now hear its armored tail striking down like the hammer of Thor against the rocks.

"Just blow it up," Lily said to herself, "Just blow it up, you can just blow it up, no you can't just blow it up…"

For one, it wouldn't be entertaining enough, not for these bastards, for another she had a feeling that the easy solution of just make the thing explode already was not what they were looking for. Was exactly the sort of thing that would get Lily expelled or else shipped off to the Wizard gulags.

"I can get expelled," Lily said to herself as she took in her surroundings, "Maybe it's time I got bloody expelled."

Really, considering that she'd only managed to make it through one full year of Hogwarts, she probably should be expelled or at least held back. At this point her Hogwarts education was an open joke.

Lily darted forward as the Dragon roared for her, smashing its tail right where she had just been standing. Now, what Lily didn't understand, she thought as she sought shelter in another rock, now to the sound of Slytherin booing (as if they'd do any bloody differently) was why she had to put up with this garbage.

She put up with this garbage annually, but this one was really taking the cake, and it was only November. Well, actually, most things came to a head by November, but this felt more ridiculous than even Squirrel or Wizard Trotsky's lethal dramatics.

She was two seconds from being burned alive, for a dragon, because the minister of magic's ratings were down in the polls.

"Oh, I bet their precious founders never envisioned this garbage when they made this goddamn castle in the goddamn middle of nowhere so their students could get eaten by dragons!" Lily cried out, though it was unlikely anyone could hear her, and the dragon certainly didn't give a shit.

And that was when Lily realized it, "Wait a second."

It wasn't the best plan, probably not the most likely to win, but it was dramatic and more it would certainly prove a point to someone. More, it meant that, for the first time in her life, Lily would not be playing janitor and somebody else could get her the bloody golden egg from the bloody dragon.

* * *

Godric had not expected much from the afterlife, not truly, he had never been a man of faith, lost as he was between Christendom and the old forgotten ways. However, if he had expected something, he had not expected it to be him gasping, sweating and naked and feeling like wretching, cold autumn air prickling on his skin while an odd uncomfortable heat grew at his back.

However, he thought with some alarm, he might have expected to hear her voice.

"Oh, good, that worked."

He looked up to see Lily, years younger than when he had seen her that last day in Hogwarts so many years ago, still an adolescent, younger even than when they had first met Salazar. She was wearing odd robes, bright and colorful as usual, and looking down at him intently with those eyes that he had never seen anywhere else.

"So, there's a dragon, it's guarding an egg, because of reasons that are entirely avoidable and bloody pointless, Headmaster Dumbledore, that's right I'm still blaming you for all of this!" she said, shouting this last bit towards the stands, specifically directed at an older man caught between staring down at her, at them, in alarm and rubbing his temples in exasperation and embarrassment, "Anyways, long story short, I need you to get the egg and feel free to do so in as ridiculous a manner as you can possibly devise. I don't care, just as long as they know, that you don't appreciate the bullshit that is dragons eating your students for sport."

At the word "they" she flung her hand towards the audience, seated in a great circular arena like a colosseum, who were now gaping in awe and wonder down at him. He spared them a glance, utterly uncertain what to make of them, and then looked back at her and asked slowly, hesitantly, "Lily?"

She blinked, blinked again as she looked at him, and then cursed, "Bloody hell."

"Hell, perhaps," another familiar voice of a long lost friend sounded, this to his left and Godric turned to see Salazar Slytherin, in the prime of his youth, hunched over and looking as if he was about to die, "Although I would suspect that Hell would be less… Lily."

"And I'd expect Salazar Slytherin to look less like a crack head," she retorted, as always, almost on instinct as she glanced down at him.

And Godric couldn't help himself, even though he was naked, and dead (the last he remembered anyway), in an arena with a dragon, and reunited with old friends in the strangest of circumstances, he threw his head back and laughed.

Lily grimaced, looked rather chagrinned, and then with wide eyed alarmed tackled them both to the ground just in time for dragon's fire to erupt over their heads.

"There really is a dragon," Salazar said in something that was almost awe yet almost horror.

"Of course, there's a dragon," Lily said, "We had to upgrade from troll in the dungeon somehow and apparently the next step up are fire breathing monsters."

She then glanced at them, apparently entirely without shame of lying on top of the pair of them while they were both still without clothes, "So, you know, you guys should do something about that."

And Godric still couldn't help it, he laughed harder, he laughed so hard he thought his lungs would collapse. It was so… He had known, with a deep and utter certainty, that he would never see her in his lifetime again. He had been almost as certain that Salazar, despite his self-prescribed quest, would not either.

And yet here they were, together again as if nothing had changed at all, and it was as if all the years were stripped away like they had never existed in the first place. The dream of Hogwarts, still strong, proud, and glittering between the three of them.

"We should do something about that?!" Salazar spluttered, flushing dramatically, and god wasn't that just hilarious too. That he could still do that, as a grown man when she was somehow almost a child.

"Why else do you think you're here?" Lily asked before hauling them, none too gently, to another cropping of rocks to avoid the dragon's thorned tail.

"You summoned us," Salazar hissed, "After all these years, after all these years of searching and looking and never sending word back, because you're too lazy to fight your own dragons!"

"It's a dragon, it is not laziness to not be in the mood to go poke that thing with a stick," and then she paused, looked at Salazar with a rather odd look, one of quiet alarm, and admitted, "And… I actually have no clue what you're talking about."

A strange, dawning, horrifying suspicion settled in Godric's stomach. Because when Lily was this age, when she was an adolescent and into adulthood, she should have been travelling with him if not with Salazar as well.

"Lily, have you not travelled in time?" Godric asked, and he saw when it dawned on Salazar's face as well, the possibility that should not have been a possibility at all. That this was the Lily that she had always suspected existed, the girl who had never met Godric Gryffindor in the first place.

"Oh," she said looking at him, eyes widening as she clearly realized the same thing, "Oh no."

With that she poked her head over the rock, that intense look that was uniquely hers appearing in her eyes, and then without a word summoned the egg from its nest and into her arms while, simultaneously, throwing the dragon through the stands and down a cliff while the audience watched in slack-jawed horror.

The three of them, along with the audience, watched the hole where the dragon had disappeared, listening to its echoing roars as it fell down, down, and further down into the abyss. There was, however, never an audible thud though they all strained their ears for it.

"This… seemed more important," Lily said after a moment, glancing at the pair of them before announcing, "I have my priorities straight."

* * *

"The founders, Lily, the founders?!"

As Lily could have guessed, Wizard Lenin was not pleased. In fact, that was the understatement of the millennium, he was pissed as hell. In his quasi-muggle disguise he kept pace with her as she walked back to the castle, egg in hand, still mulling over her point gain over the event.

Lily was, currently, in fourth place as, "Necromancy is considered one of the darkest of arts, Miss Potter" despite the fact that the founders hadn't ended up doing anything with that whole, "What do you mean you haven't traveled in time yet five-hundred years ago, Lily, didn't you have so much fun the last time you did it fifty years ago?"

They had also more or less said that her actual retrieval of the age was girl who lived bullshit, which, Lily supposed it was but if they were going to put her in this thing then they deserved girl who lived bullshit.

Still, there apparently was a party in Gryffindor tower in her honor and everyone was invited. Well, Gryffindor, Default, and her recent zombie founder friends were invited, everyone else apparently could go stuff it. Except she doubted the zombie founders could make it as they had all too quickly been mobbed by both Rita Skeeter, tabloid extraordinaire, Albus Dumbledore, and the entirety of the ministry of magic.

(And if Lily had the distinct feeling that they were both blaming her for all of this and would have much rather attended the Gryffindor shindig, well, that wasn't Lily's problem either.)

"Half the founders," Lily corrected, it'd seemed overkill to summon the fearsome foursome into the frey. That, and from everything Hermione rambled at her, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff weren't really the ones you turned to when they set a dragon on you. Granted, Slytherin wasn't either, but he'd put a giant snake in his basement so Lily was calling it revenge.

"It doesn't matter what fraction of the founders you raised from the dead it—"

Lily cut him off, "Look, Lenin, if these people are going to listen to anyone, ever, then it's going to be those two. Do you know how often a day I hear the words Gryffindor and Slytherin? These people are bigger than the Beatles, bigger than Jesus, maybe even bigger than me!"

Wizard Lenin, as always, was not impressed by Lily's very sound reasoning, "Oh, so now everything's solved because Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin can tell Albus Dumbledore what a terrible idea it is to pit students against dragons."

"You don't think so?" Lily asked, which only served to increase Wizard Lenin's rage enough that the shadows began to shake and the pebbles on the path began to float in midair.

"Albus Dumbledore, is so righteous and ruthless, that he would sell his grandmother for a bar of soap if he thought it would benefit the society he envisions! God himself could descend upon high to teach him the err of his ways and he would change nothing!"

Lily was not exactly Albus Dumbledore's greatest fan, certainly not after the last few years, but even she was willing to admit that something in that was probably an exaggeration.

"Well, it's over," Lily said, "And I don't have to worry about the next one until after December, or I guess until I figure out what the hell to do with this."

This, of course, being her new friend the golden egg of mystery, whose mysterious clue she must know if she hoped to pass through the next task. How it glittered, she thought, how it almost seemed to glow.

Still, given Lily's track record, something horrible would probably happen by December anyways and she'd be out doing God knows what. Actually, she thought with growing alarm, she'd probably be back with the founders in ye olden times of wizarding society.

Given, you know the, "Oh, have we not met yet Lily?" thing.

She was starting to hate when people did that.

"So, about the founders…" Lily said, trailing off awkwardly and rubbing at the back of her head as Wizard Lenin glared at her.

"Yes?" he finally asked when she fell into silence.

"I don't know, are… snakes going to be a thing?" and that probably was not the question she should have been asking, but suddenly it was a very pressing one. After the chamber thing and Wizard Trotsky Lily really did not do snakes. In fact, she thought, she might just have a phobia of them and would light one on fire if she ever happened to see one again.

Wizard Lenin said nothing, walking faster, his unfairly longer legs carrying him easily away from her while she jogged to keep up, "I'm serious, Lenin, I can't handle snakes! It's always snakes, and I just can't handle the snakes!"

* * *

"You made the houses," Salazar said in accusation as they entered the great hall, a hall now filled to the brim with students just as Godric and Salazar had always hoped, but also decorated in the four banners Lily had once prophesied. There was the red and gold lion for Godric, the silver and green serpent for Salazar, the raven presumably for Rowena Ravenclaw, and the badger for Helga Hufflepuff. There was, he thought, a fifth one, a dull and uninteresting white hanging at the smallest table furthest away. It was here, amid a small huddle of similarly aged students, that Lily sat, currently being reprimanded rather severely by a bushy haired little girl.

"I can't believe you made the houses," Salazar repeated, his voice now far more dangerous as his temper caught up with him.

By that point Salazar had been gone so long that Godric hadn't considered that he'd have to explain himself. He grinned awkwardly rubbing at the back of his head, still feeling out of place in these modern robes and times, and said, "Well, I certainly never made these houses."

Indeed, he'd explicitly not made Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw, seen it as a betrayal to Lily as it, in essence, had been the reason she had left in the first place. To honor that request, to erase her existence from his life…

Perhaps he had been too selfish, too petty, but he couldn't do it.

Yet, he thought bitterly, here it was done all the same. A world, he thought, in which they had never crossed paths in the first place. He was certain, and not just with "A History of Hogwarts" placed under his arm, filled with tales of Godric's early death, of Salazar's betrayal that Lily had so off-handedly mentioned, that it was worse for it.

He refused to let it be anything else.

"No," Salazar agreed quietly, "Even you have more tact than that."

Really, Godric thought, he was calling the kettle black. For all that Salazar prided himself on his cunning and silver tongue, he had always gotten into arguments far more easily with Lily than Godric had. She had had a particular talent for goading him into it, and Godric knew the man had loved every bloody minute of it.

Salazar's eyes were still on her, watched as she looked up at them, paled then flushed then waved a bit awkwardly, that stranger's wave that spoke of no recognition.

"I am… glad that she does not look like she belongs here," Salazar finally said, stalking towards the head table and through the throngs of children all whispering and shouting towards them with stars in their eyes.

She didn't, Godric thought, no more than they themselves did although she wore their modern uniform easily enough. No, just as they had had to negotiate a place to stay within these walls, had been poked and prodded with spells to detect necromancy of the vilest sort (rather than Lily defying the laws of reality one again on a whim), she did not belong in this place either for all that they had carved her a seat of honor.

The girl who lived, slayer of dark lords, and savior of Britain.

She had always mentioned it, Godric thought with a peculiar sort of fondness, but she had never said it so plainly as a history book could.

And they, Godric thought with a sigh as they made their way towards the staff table, they were stuck here, trapped by their own legends and what history had made of them, until Lily deemed otherwise. If, Godric realized with some alarm, she realized that she could deem otherwise.

He took his seat, next to an odd brooding man with unbelievably greasy dark hair, who looked torn between blanching and sneering at Godric's presence and kept his eye on her all the while. Why, he thought, was she truly here? She was as young as the others, as young as many of the students they had first taught in Hogwarts, true, but she was so very gifted.

She had been beyond Godric's abilities, beyond the height of his potential and mastery, when she was a child first stumbling on him in the woods. She had no reason to be in Hogwarts, not for education, and she had said as much often enough to Godric.

That she did not have to go back to Hogwarts, that she did not want to go back to Hogwarts, and yet that some part of her must diligently return to this place time and again.

Godric's eye then fell on the man next to him, took him in, and with widening eyes realized, "You must be Severus Snape."

The man paled, uncharacteristically spluttered, and rather lamely exclaimed, "You have heard of me… lord Gryffindor?"

Godric smiled, a cheerful, amused, thing at a man who he had never realized he could one day see in the flesh, "Oh, I'm afraid so, you see where I come from Severus Snape is entirely too infamous for his own good. Rumor has it he guzzles the tears of his traumatized students' tears."

Lily's rumor also had it that the man was a bitter thirty something year old virgin but Godric was not feeling quite that cruel. Though, by Lily's tales, the man certainly deserved it. As it was, apparently Godric's words were horrifying enough, as the man seemed to wilt and pale where he sat, staring out at the audience, then directly at Lily with wide dark eyes.

As if he knew that somehow, in some impossible manner, this was all her fault.

Then, seething, the man stood, glaring down at Lily and said in a frosty voice, "Potter, twenty points from Default for slander and libel."

"Slander?!" Lily asked, standing from her seat and shouting back right across the hall from him, "It's not slander if it's the truth! What was it anyway?"

Godric couldn't help it, he began to chuckle, attempting to bite his lip to keep it in. Though he supposed it was all well and good because the man Snape was too engrossed in his shouting match with a fourteen-year-old Lily to notice.

"Ten more points from Default, Potter!"

Godric glanced over at the hour glasses, the ones containing these house points earned, and noted with even more laughter that the one featuring nothing but a plain, white, rabbit had a sign placed next to it noting, "Default Debt".

And Default's Debt was substantially higher than Slytherin's earned house points.

"You can do better than that, professor," Lily chided, "I haven't lost so few points since the last time you descended to, 'your daddy' insults!"

The rest of the staff table seemed resigned, almost embarrassed even, and Godric couldn't help it. In Lily's words, he lost his shit. His head fell on the table in helpless laughter as Salazar glared down at him, huffing with far too much pride as he declared, "As always, Godric, you are insufferable."

Hilarious, Godric thought, the word Salazar was looking for, as always, was hilarious.

* * *

He found her out by the lake.

She was taking her egg for a run, as it now travelled with her everywhere in an attempt to discover its mysterious egg like secrets, and was mostly using the time to not think about her usual round of troubles.

Such as that Moody was the creepiest Defense professor to date (which said a lot given Squirrel), that Wizard Lenin's other half was out there doing who knew what, Wizard Trotsky was MIA, she was in this tournament thing, and of course the founders.

She hadn't expected to see much of the founders, honestly. They'd seemed like they'd had their hands full with the staff, and while they stuck around Hogwarts, she'd have thought they'd be more interested in seeing how the world had changed. They were, she supposed, but not as much as she would have expected.

They were also… still clearly friends, on good and unstrained terms, as if Salazar's basilisk had never happened.

And they looked at her often, stared directly at her whether she was looking at them or not, and sometimes it was in expectation but mostly with a sort of combined hopeless nostalgia she didn't quite understand.

Still, classes had gone on and eventually Lily had left it be, if the past was coming for her then it would come for her and that would be that. Why worry over it now when there was little she could do one way or another?

Except now here Godric Gryffindor was, looking down on her fondly, as if he wouldn't be anywhere else in the world.

She didn't know how she'd pictured Godric Gryffindor, she supposed she'd pictured him taller and broader, his sword had always seemed far too large and heavy for her. However, while he wasn't a thin man he also wasn't Viktor Krum either, but something in the middle. His hair was a more yellow-red than her own, hinting on blonde, and his eyes a kind corn-flower blue.

"And at last, it seems we have time to talk to one another," he said as she came to a stop in front of him. His smile didn't dim, didn't grow less fond, but did contain some aching note of pain as he asked, "We've never met, have we?"

Lily shook her head, then, finally biting the bullet asked, "Were we supposed to?"

"Yes," he said softly, "It would have happened already, years ago."

"Oh," Lily said, not quite sure if she was relieved or not. On the one hand, jaunts in the past were never fun, but on the other hand…

On the other hand, she thought as he looked at her, she had so few friends in the world.

"Well," she said for lack of anything else to say, shifting the egg in her arms, "I'm… sorry, you know, about the abrupt summoning and the dragon."

"Well, I can't say I was particularly busy doing anything else," Godric said with a smile, "I don't mind, truly, it's… Good to see what might have been."

Lily considered that slowly, wondered at the possibility of seeing a world not without her existence necessarily, but where something drastic had changed. Maybe a world in which Lily had never had Wizard Lenin in her head… She wasn't sure she wanted to see whatever that wonderful life was.

He also didn't really look as if he meant it, she thought, as if something about this particular future bothered him at his very core.

"Slytherin never betrayed you, did he?" Lily asked.

"No," Godric said, before giving her a wry and somewhat bitter smile, "Funny, you are the first to realize that. The rest all take it for granted, that we are the Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin they are achingly familiar with… Your world's Salazar, I think his life was unkind. And yet here he is reviled by all but his own house, and I am placed upon an altar."

"Well, I appreciate the difference," Lily said after a pause, feeling uncharacteristically awkward about all of this, "I had to slay his giant basement-snake, I'm sure somebody's mentioned it, or maybe not since half of them secretly blame me for the whole thing…"

He looked at her then like he expected nothing less and never would, "I know."

She smiled back at him, an easier and fonder thing that she thought possible. Maybe she would never know him the way some other world's Lily had, maybe she would never figure out what her goddamn egg was supposed to do, maybe the universe was just collapsing and there was nothing Lily could do about it.

Still, she thought as she stared across at him, she'd like to know this man and maybe Salazar Slytherin with him all the same. More, she thought, she suspected the reason he hadn't ventured out into the wide world, was because he wanted the same.

* * *

 **Author's Note: A fic where Lily, as per "Minato Namikaze and the Destroyer of Worlds" resurrects people from the dead and shenanigans and chaos ensue. I thought that was worthy of pulling back from "Default Origins".**

 **Thanks for reading, reviews are much appreciated.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter**


	2. Chapter 2

If Lily was smart, she'd be preparing for the mysterious second task for the Triwizard Tournament given the bang up job she'd done on the first. Lily, currently, was in pitifully last place thanks to necromancy and dramatically killing off the dragon by throwing it off a cliff in record time.

Not that Lily really cared about winning, per se, but she did have her pride and all.

And there was something about being dead last in any kind of competition that really rubbed her the wrong way.

As it was though Christmas and the disastrous Yule Ball had come and gone, second term was upon them, Lily was still in Hogwarts, she still had a golden mystery egg, and she also had no idea what the hell she was doing.

And instead of working like that, like she'd said she would since the end of November, she was yet again sitting at the edge of the lake with Godric Gryffindor.

She hadn't expected to like him, to like any of the founders really. Maybe it was the fact that they really were bigger than Jesus to wizarding Britain, and that they were brought up all the damn time, or maybe it was the fact that Lily hated the house system with a passion. Either way, in the off moments Lily had imagined meeting the fearsome foursome in person she had loathed each and every one of them with a passion.

The trouble was that Gordic was a really great guy.

Slytehrin too, didn't seem too awful, although he was still quite miffed that his house was known for backstabbing, elitist, nepotism. Godric though, he really was as noble and valiant as all the stories had led Lily to believe.

And she really hadn't expected that.

She'd been expecting some kind of ancient Weasley who talked like Shakespeare and ran around with a sword while mailing people toilet seats. Thankfully, he was anything but.

"So," Lily asked, sighing as she heard yet another group of girls giggling from somewhere behind them.

It used to be that Viktor Krum was stalked by all the Hogwarts ladies, and the he'd gone and asked Hermione Granger to the dance and turned the world on its head. More, even before that, the founders themselves had arrived and neither were exactly bad looking. Salazar Slytherin was a bit grungy, though very pretty when you managed to find his face beneath that hair, but Godric Gryffindor was classically hot.

Muscular, tall, bright red hair, straight aristocratic nose, and cornflower blue eyes he screamed everything Lockhart wished that he could have been.

Which meant, of course, even more hot guys to giggle at.

"So," Lily forced herself to continue, "What are you and your buddy Slytherin going to do when summer starts?"

She'd edged around the question, hinted it, but today was the first time she'd actually manned up and asked. She'd guessed she would have expected them to leave by now, Lily certainly would have in their position.

But they'd stayed over the holidays as Lily herself had and they were still here at the start of the Spring term.

He just smiled though, not offended or panicked at all, "I don't know."

"You could probably make a killing with celebrity appearances alone," Lily pointed out, "Or if you get an autobiography or two out there then the pair of you are golden."

"Somehow," he said with that same easy smile, "I do not think the people would like the tale I have to tell."

Lily blinked a few times, then remembered precisely what he meant, "Oh, right, the different universe thing."

He nodded, "Your world, Lily, is very attached to the tale they know."

"I guess," Lily agreed hesitantly but pointed out, "Although a quarter of the population might actually be thrilled that in some world you and Slytherin aren't at each other's throats."

Although it'd probably rock Draco Malfoy and Ron Weasley's respective worlds. They'd have to rethink their entire lives, everything they'd ever known, and it very well could destroy them. So maybe the noble Gryffindor had something of a point.

"Only to upset the other half," Godric cut in.

"The other half?" who the hell was the other half? Lily wracked her brains and finally settled on, "You mean Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw?"

Generally, no one gave a shit what Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws thought about anything. They were kind of left to their own devices and did their best to stay out of trouble and go while the going was good. Only Gryffindor and Slytherin would actually brawl in the hallways or else out on the streets.

They were the fifty percent of the population whose opinions no one could give a hot damn about.

Even more so than the pitifully small House Default.

Godric just nodded again and confessed, "I never met Rowena Ravenclaw, she was never an instructor while I was at the school. As for Helga Hufflepuff, I only met her once briefly, and she almost made it a point of being unmemorable."

Lily's jaw fell open, "Holy shit."

He just grinned, "Yes, I have the feeling they wouldn't like that."

No, no they would not. It was all about the fearsome foursome, all about how the four had come together after years of friendship and built a magic castle from nothing, the idea that two of them had next to nothing to do with it any reality really would cause people to roll in their graves.

Great Britain could explode.

"Was something wrong with them?!" Lily could help but ask.

He rubbed at his chin, cleanshaven to match the times, and explained, "Helga, when we came across her, was too young. We all perhaps were, but she especially was. She was an apprentice in an apothecary in London and had little interest in abandoning what she saw as her life's work to come chase a dream with the three of us. And we had no use for someone of her lack of talents."

He then glanced at her, "The only reason we looked for her at all was because of you."

"Me?" Lily asked, wondering what in the world she would have to do with it.

"Yes," he said with a smile, "You were adamant that we had to find the other two, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, even if we had to search every inch of the British Isles. We only ever did find Hufflepuff, I at least never saw hide nor hair of Ravenclaw."

"But if Hufflpuff didn't come with you," Lily said counting off on her fingers, "And Ravenclaw was AWOL, then who was number three?"

"You, of course," Godric said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world that Lily should be the third member of the founders that weren't.

"Me?!" Lily asked, "Why the hell would I be there?"

"You'd always been there," Godric said with a shrug, "Long before Salazar, we met when I was only eleven and you always seemed around the same age yourself. People thought we were twins."

Lily didn't know how she felt about that, mostly because she really couldn't say she was Hogwart's number one fan. Sure, if other Lily felt she had to preserve the timeline or something then she guessed she would be pro-Hogwarts and finding the founders but otherwise she hated this place.

She guessed it was useful for most people but for Lily personally terrible things kept happening to her inside these walls.

"Well, I guess it's better than Potions."

He laughed, threw his head back and laughed like she was the funniest thing he'd heard in his life, "You said that then too, all the time, and how much you loathed Snape."

"Really," Lily said, not sure how she felt about this twin Lily running around in some world Lily couldn't see, "Well, I do hate Snape."

"I know," Gryffindor said, stifling giggles now, "I swear I know more about that man than I have any right to. Damn near terrified him when I first spoke with him, of course, he still blamed you."

"Of course he did," Lily said, "Everyone blames me for everything around here."

"Are they wrong to?" Godric asked in a tone that was far too knowing given that he and Lily only hang out around the lake a few times.

"Not everything is always my fault!" Lily said, "Really, and even if I do get sucked into whatever garbage is happening it's not really my fault. Take this Triwizard tournament shinding that's happening."

"What about it?"

"Well," Lily said, arms flailing everywhere as she bemoaned her current situation, "Here I am, minding my own business, not stepping a single foot near the goblet of fire and I'm thrown into it anyways. And instead of thinking that maybe someone stuck my name in, everyone and their brother is saying I did it on purpose because I wasn't already famous enough. I'm Wizard Jesus, I am more than famous enough!"

"Yes, about that," Godric said, "Salazar have been talking it over and we're not quite sure what this Triwizard Tournament is."

"Don't ask me," Lily said, "I was just told it was happening, quidditch was canceled, and then to shut up and face my dragon already."

"It's for sport, then?" he asked.

"Sport, honor, glory, riches, and fame," Lily said and at seeing his confused expression explained, "If I win they give me a lot of money."

"Ah," he said, nodding his head slowly, and then asked the ultimate question, "Why?"

"Because watching teenagers flail beneath dragons is, apparently, the height of entertainment," Lily said, "And I think it's supposed to distract from the fact that we're on the eve of civil war again. Not that it's working, but they are trying very hard."

"Civil war?!"

"Sure, hasn't anyone told you?" Lily asked, "The dark lord nearly took over the country around fifteen years ago only to be held back by yours truly. There's been a fair number of rumors that he's coming back."

Now, Lily could for sure say that he was back, but Wizard Lenin would not appreciate her outing him even to Godric Gryffindor. Maybe especially to Godric Gryffindor.

"You don't sound overly concerned," Godric noted with narrowed eyes, like he knew that meant something very specific but wasn't willing to say it out loud yet.

"Well," Lily said hesitantly, trying to think of an explanation that was not her secret friendship with Wizard Lenin, "It's not really my problem, is it? I'm fourteen, my problems should consist of grades and boy bands."

"Your problems never consist of grades and boy bands," Gryffindor responded back immediately, far too quickly really, like he was entirely too used to her.

"But they should," Lily countered.

"Oh, I don't think so," Godric said, "It wouldn't suit you. You were always made for grander things than this, even Hogwarts itself could not hold you."

He hadn't mentioned that before. Granted, it seemed as if Lily hadn't been there at the end, maybe Salazar hadn't either, but he'd never actually said that the other Lily had left Hogwarts either. Something in Lily felt pained at that, and yet, she couldn't say she was surprised.

Still, she couldn't find the words to respond.

"Well, for now it does," she said instead, and chose to pull her mysterious golden egg from the ether, "And for now, given the garbage problems I do have, do you have any idea what the bloody hell I should do with it? Because it's been months, and I still haven't the foggiest."

* * *

 **Author's Note: Lily and Godric bonding and some more discussions of the world that never was.**

 **Thanks to readers, reviews are much appreciated.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter**


End file.
